Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Thunderf00t thinks men are dumb beasts - Part 7

I'm going
to back up and look at Mr F00t's main assertion at this point in the
video. He stated:

Well,
for violent rape, if you spend some time reading accounts from serial
rapists and murderers, they tend to choose their victims based on
body language.... Here the cues tend to be not so much how you dress
- although this is communicating things about you - it's "Do you
have the body language of someone who would make a good victim?"

While I'm
quite willing to believe that Phil Mason has spent time reading
accounts from serial rapists and murderers, it would have been
helpful if he'd mentioned a few exact sources so that interested
viewers could check for themselves - but perhaps he just assumes his
audience is as well-versed in the behaviour of predatory criminals as
he is.

And that
might be a fair assumption. One can only speculate.

But he
could have provided a link to, for instance, this article, that
supports his argument and makes the same points he tries to make but
without mentioning wasps.

Because
really, that wasp thing? Just distracting.

But
props to Phil Mason - like a stopped clock with a penchant for
tortuous analogies and spinning off at tangents, he's been right once
today.

So let's
see how being aware of one's body language can be useful in
the real world, either when trying to avoid rapists on city streets,
or mountain lions in remote mountain passes. He goes on:

But
for those of you who feel more comfortable with a more civic analogy,

I could do without analogies altogether, as so far not a single one of them has been helpful.

burglars look for people who have left their windows unlocked, in the
same way that sexual predators look for the body language of the
victim. This is NOT victim-blaming. This is giving advice on how to
avoid becoming one.

Except
that advice would actually include some... advice. "Try not to
exhibit the body language of a victim" could be sound advice for
anyone, but only if you actually explain what that body language
looks like.

Unless...
When Thunderf00t cuts in the clip of a black men getting into an
elevator with a white woman, and she steps into the corner and
clutches her purse - is that supposed to illustrate what "the
body language of a victim" looks like?

If so, is
that really the most appropriate video Thunderf00t could have chosen?
Because suddenly cutting that particular clip - with its focus on
racial prejudice - into a video supposedly about rape prevention
strikes me as (like the wasp analogy) bizarrely distracting from the
main theme.

Moving
on. Thunderf00t is now done with explaining to you how to avoid
becoming a victim of violent stranger rapists (Just don't look like a
victim!), and will now teach you how to protect yourself from people
not wearing balaclavas.

As for
'Date Rape', the golden rule seems to be "Be aware of your
circumstances". Be cautious about ending up all alone with
someone you don't really trust.

Like, if someone
approaches you in an elevator at 4.00 AM and asks you to come back to
their room for coffee; that kind of cautious?

Now there
is a fine line to tread here. Dating is usually the prelude to a
relationship [citation needed], and if you want a relationship, trust
is going to be core to that relationship. Similarly, showing large
amounts of trust on a date is a significant token of commitment to a
potential relationship [citation needed].

It
also increases your potential vulnerability. It's a tough choice, but
if you're gonna get paranoid about trusting people it will undermine
both your ability to form and maintain healthy relationships.

So:
do be paranoid and end up forever alone, or don't be paranoid and
maybe get raped?

Again, it seems it's always the potential victims -
ie, in the context of this video, women - who have to make the tough
choices.

And
if men were mountain lions, driven solely by predatory instincts and
unable to make ethically informed decisions, that would make a lot of
sense. But that does rather suggest that men are irredeemably base
animals with no potential to learn or change their behaviour.

Why
does Thunderf00t have such a very low opinion of our gender?

EDIT: Read the first comment below for a point both I and Thunderf00t completely missed.

33 comments:

Imagine a rapist. Let's call him Rapist TM. He's out lurkin' in a darkened street of an evening, looking for someone to rape. Because that's what Rapist TM does. Woman A walks past, dressed like a wasp, making buzzing noises and threatening to sting people. Rapist TM doesn't rape her.

Let's imagine that then, Woman B walks past. She wanders about with the body language of a slightly terrified hamster. Or maybe a baby deer, separated from its herd. Something like that, anyway.

It may be that Mr F00t's advice has stopped Rapist TM from raping Woman A. But it hasn't exactly stopped rapes from happening now, hasn't it?

All his ideas do are transfer The Inevitable Rapes That Rapist TM Will Commit onto someone else.

Following thunderf00t's reasoning to its logical conclusions, he undermines himself. As Aoife pointed out, let's say that rapists really won't rape the "wasp women". Not let's say that all women were somehow successful in becoming "wasps" and scaring off the rapists who would prey upon them.

By TF's own reasoning, you can't stop a rapist from raping because it's part of his "sexuality"... or something. So even if we all successfully followed TF's advice, it stands to reason that eventually rapists will just have to become more aggressive. Soon they'll be preying on the "wasps" when there aren't any "non-wasp" women around.

Granted, it's a slippery slope, but that's what TF seems to suggest by stating that rapists are always going to rape. If they run out of scared victims, we should predict that they just become emboldened and go after the more cautious and stand-offish women around them.

So thanks, TF, for managing to say absolutely nothing of value and being able to anger so many people in the process. Truly, it's a talent of his, isn't it?

"All Thunderfoot is saying is "we should be able to give safety advice to women without being accused of victim blaming. That's a lot more effective than 'tell﻿ men not to rape.' " What's wrong with that?"

Second, it's ignorant because it underestimates the scope and scale of the average woman's experience when it comes to being bombarded by unwanted sexual attention REGARDLESS of any kinds of "precaution". In that sense, it's also presumptuous, since the vast, vast majority of these givers of "advice" don't really understand it in their position. (I'm speaking of men here, mostly, if that wasn't obvious.)

Third, we've already heard all of the advice any of them could ever give. It's like coincidentally being named Steve Jobs and having to deal with people inevitably making stupid Apple jokes for the rest of your life. We've heard it all before, keep the advice (or jokes) to yourself. So simply being obnoxious is another reason.

Lastly, I would have to turn the question around and ask, "What's wrong with trying to educate men and women about consent, the matter of rape and sexual assault, and with trying to enforce a better cultural standard for the treatment of women and their autonomy? What's wrong with that?" I know that's something of a copout by answering a question with a question, but seriously. If the only answer is some defeatist attitude like "rapists gonna rape, bro", then these people can just stop talking. That's their answer, they are no help to the discourse. End of story.

The write-up Predators Redux focuses on what we know about predators (specifically undetected rapists), and what they're looking for, and how we can stop that.

Speaking about the advice to women (have your keys in hand, don't walk down dark alleys) he says:

even if those tips were all very useful in that context, it ignores the much more common context: the serial predators that go after women they know, and use alcohol as their main tool.

Then he quotes from Lisak's report, one of the most important findings:

Rather than focusing prevention efforts on the rapists, it would seem far more effective to focus those efforts on the far more numerous bystanders – men and women who are part of the social and cultural milieu in which rapes are spawned and who can be mobilized to identify perpetrators and intervene in high-risk situations.

Teach Men Not To Rape--because not only does it target people who don't know about consent but it removes the social license to operate that serial rapists rely on.

Teach Men Not To Rape so bystanders can recognize and call out bad behavior.

Teach Men Not To Rape.

Dammitall, that's SUPER IMPORTANT, and the more Thunderf00t complains about it the more important it becomes.

All Thunderfoot is saying is "we should be able to give safety advice to women without being accused of victim blaming. That's a lot more effective than "tell﻿ men not to rape." What's wrong with that?A: No, that's not all he's saying.B: Is it more effective? citation needed.C: Even if it were more effective, you would further have to prove that telling people not to rape in addition to telling people how to avoid getting raped is no more effective than just doing the latter.D: If I wanted safety advice, I don't think this t-p44n's channel is the place I'd go.

I would recommend the Jackson Katz TED Talk about violence against women to all the "Men's Men" out there. It needs to be seen as a man's issue much more than it is. Tfoot, being such the stud that he is, I'm sure would take advice from a PhD manly lookin' man like Jackson Katz... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvSfeCRxe8

I'd add that one additional problem with TF's analogy to burglary is that there aren't many burglars who think that what they are doing is OK, or who don't think it's really burglary if they know the victim, or who could do so in front of a lot of bystanders and not only not be stopped, but could be cheered on.

As a male victim of rape and sexual abuse, I disagree that we can ever truly prevent rape from ever occurring. Rape and murder and other actions like those will probably always exist, diminished or not. I also don't understand the mantra about teaching people not to rape. As a society, we do that, just like with stealing or murder. Anyone who thinks we live in a society glorifying rape and sexual abuse is just delusional. And guess what, all these things still happen anyway...

And as a father of a young daughter, I disagree that advising caution equals victimization and apologizing for rape that a lot of feminist go on about. When my daughter comes of age, I do plan to teach her that for example getting piss drunk at a bar among a lot of strange men and women is likely to increase your chances of rape and should either be avoided or at least done with caution.

Admittedly, I haven't seen the thunderf00t video yet, but after reading a couple of these comments, I don't think people are approaching prevention of rape very realistically here, at least from my POV.

No one is saying that advising caution equals victimization. But Thunderfool is mistaking advice given to people who have already been victimized (ie, don't blame yourself for what someone else chose to do to you)with preventative advice.It's also condescending to think that most people don't already know how to avoid situations like the one you describe, but most rapes don't happen that way. Teaching young men (and yes it's mostly young men) about things like the importance of consent is a necessary step if we're serious about reducing the incidence of rape.

It's also condescending to think that most people don't already know how to avoid situations like the one you describe, but most rapes don't happen that way

I keep reading the same two arguments made by two bitterly divided groups of people here. One group is saying:"Giving women advice is patronising (don't you think most of us know this stuff already)" and "men need to be shown what rape entails because some men don't understand"

The other group is saying"Telling men not to rape is patronising (don't you think most of us know this already?) and "women need to be shown that some behaviours are unduly reckless because some women don't understand"

It seems to me as if neither group accepts that their complaints cut both ways here.Sure, giving advice and guidance to any group will be condescending to many; unnecessary for many. The point is that there ARE young men (and women) that are naive when it comes to consent and what constitutes rape and there ARE young women (and men (who are frequently even more reckless with their personal safety)) who are naive with regard to the potential pitfalls and dangers of certain situations and relationships. Does anyone really doubt this, yet I see two groups if people who will happily ignore the 'some' on one hand and laud the benefits of reaching the 'some' on the other.

Notwithstanding this, Thunderf00t is not the best vehicle for delivering advice when the aim is to avoid exceasive condescension, I accept that.

That looks like a valid point, noel - until you remember that the group claiming that men already know what rape is is the group that has upvoted a video that undermines that claim. A video that outright states that continuing after a prtner has withdrawn consent is "just bad sex".

I get your point, that dialogue between people who have each taken a firm position is fruitless - but implying that both positions have equal merit is false.

The whole "we're just trying to teach women risk avoidance" plea is disingenuous. It's a way of saying "Well, we told the women how not to get raped - so if after that they do get raped, whose fault can it possibly be? Not ours. Our hands are clean."

It's a way of dismissing a problem exarcerbated by widespread attitudes towards women - a problem that could realistically be reduced if we examine those attitudes and try to change them.

There is massive resistance to that idea - you only have to look at the rage that boils up whenever sexism is mentioned in the media to see that - and one way that resistance functions is by constantly insisting the conversation should be "What can individuals do to protect themselves?" rather than "What can we all do to stop enabling and aiding the predators?"

Loved how you connected Thunderf00t's advice to Elevatorgate, which was arguably the event which sparked off this whole anti feminist horseshit crusade. I mean, Rebecca's simple "Hey guys, don't do this, because I found it weird when this guy did it to me" launched a thousand indignant comments and tons of awful attacks on her. This caused people like PZ to step in and help defend her position. This in turn caused Dawkins to come in and derp it up by trivializing Rebecca's concern. This in turn caused PZ and co. to rebuke Dawkins, which in turn caused more idiotic anti feminist butthurt. This in turn caused Thunderf00t to come in and attack PZ with his very first blog posts, which in turn ended with Thunderf00t being exposed as a gigantic horse's ass on any topic not directly related to science. This in turn caused Thunderf00t to begin his long anti feminist crusade, which in turn is what led to this failtastic video of his.

There, you have a concise history of this whole shitstorm. You're welcome.

The whole "we're just trying to teach women risk avoidance" plea is disingenuous. It's a way of saying "Well, we told the women how not to get raped - so if after that they do get raped, whose fault can it possibly be? Not ours. Our hands are clean."

As much as that is the intention then I would agree it is disingenuous. However, i think it is unfair to lump all such advice in to that camp. After all, we DO dole out advice on how to avoid almost every single other crime known to humankind so on what grounds do we assume that all that advice is well intentioned and yet assume, across the board, that as soon as sex is involved the advice is for nefarious reasons?

I get your point, that dialogue between people who have each taken a firm position is fruitless - but implying that both positions have equal merit is false.

It is not so much that I think that dialogue is fruitless (though sadly I think in these waters positions are becoming so entrenched that this may be becoming the case - and which is actually why I have quite enjoyed posting here because as someone pigeonholed (by others)as in the 'misogynistic bigot' camp I've actually been able to enjoy some dialogue) but rather that I think both sides are right that their favoured campaigns have validity and worth but wrong that opposing campaigns have no benefit. That was all i meant.

Lastly,A video that outright states that continuing after a prtner has withdrawn consent is "just bad sex".

Interesting one this. I myself have criticised the video on the same grounds but having revisited it and I am not sure that it is quite a fair criticism. Pleased here me out Mike on this.Firstly, I agree his graph is shit. Quite how this 'bad sex' transition works i have no idea; as if somehow bad sex segues into rape in some kind of ill-defined way. I don't know. I have no idea how that could work. However, accepting that this is his model I'd ask you to go and listen to that section again. What he says is that there is a line between rape and just bad sex and then gives two examples of the form Example A or Example B. Now I had assumed, like you I think, that these two examples were both examples of bad sex being misrepresented as rape. however, it actually makes at least as much sense to assume that he is saying ExA lies the rape side of his strange little line an ExB the non-rape side.I uploaded a video on victim blaming yesterday and made reference to Thunderf00ts video in the video and the footnotes. This alternative interpretation occured to me just before i uploaded the video and I amended the notes to include it. However, numerous commenters have still criticised me saying that it is obvious (to them) that Tf00t intended ExA as something the 'yes rape' side of the line and that i am quote mining to even bring it up in the way I did.So I would ask you to watch it once more. There is plenty to critcise in the video apart from this but that doesn't mean, i know you will agree, to criticise someone for an interpretation that they did not intend. At the very least some charitability needs to be extended to those who 'thumbed up' the video but interpreted that as his 'rape' example.Is that fair?

PS: One of Thunderf00ts big problems is that, out of arrogance or otherwise, he has always been notoriously reticent to clear up ambiguities in his videos. If I was him I'd immediately append a note or annotation to clarify the ambiguity but he seems to regard it as simply other people's stupidity and therefore their issue if they misunderstand him.

"I keep reading the same two arguments made by two bitterly divided groups of people here. One group is saying:"Giving women advice is patronising (don't you think most of us know this stuff already)" and "men need to be shown what rape entails because some men don't understand"

The other group is saying"Telling men not to rape is patronising (don't you think most of us know this already?) and "women need to be shown that some behaviours are unduly reckless because some women don't understand"

The important distinction being that one of those groups represents people who are disproportionately victims of rapists and the other represents the group of people who are disproportionately more likely to be rapists...

Rape isn't a problem because women aren't taking the kind of precautions we're talking about; it's a problem because even taking those precautions won't prevent most rapes because most rapes aren't the stereotypical "stranger in a dark alley" variety.

Back iin my more athletic days I had the opportunity to teach a women's self defense seminar. The first part of it was about "awareness and avoidance" during which I mostly listened to the group explain to me the precautions they already were taking. Then we went on to the fun stuff about how to use your elbow like a rifle butt and selecting soft tissue targets...they already know all that other stuff; women have that conversation with each other all the time.

I doubt very much that young men have as many conversations with each other about respecting boundaries and what constitutes consent...

And personally I'm far less offended by ""men need to be shown what rape entails because some men don't understand" (because sadly it's true) than I am by assholes like Thunderfart telling me that men are just incapable of controlling their rapey urges in the presence of women who look a certain way or who have had a couple of drinks.

We do not teach men "not to rape". Quite the opposite...our society exalts men for their sexual prowess. Our society teaches men that sex is their due.

I was raped because the man thought that because I'd come to his house, and he'd treated me to dinner and couple beers, that he could ignore me when I said I was "really too tired just now, can we play in the morning?" He thought that just because he knew I preferred to play the submissive, all he really needed to do was make me do it.

He was not Rapist TM. He was a man who didn't fully understand what the boundaries were, because no one taught him what they were.

And I'd add that men giving women advice on avoiding rape (or bringing shame upon themselves, as it used to be called) has been going on for millenia. The Prophet Muhammad doled out tips for risk prevention.

The idea that we should demand that men think about their attitudes and behaviour is a relatively new one - and as with all new ideas that require attitude adjustment, many men don't like it and would much prefer to dismiss and derail.

I've just read a comment on a blog that says "Well of course it would be nice if the culture changed so that rape was less prevalent, but while we're waiting for that to happen women need to protect themselves" - as though the culture is just going to change itself without any effort on the part of the individual.

Worse, in fact - as if the culture is going to change when people like Thunderf00t are doing their damnedest to prevent any progress.

Noelplum - On your last point, about Thunderf00t's intention with his "bad sex" examples: Before I posted the part talking about that, I and several other people had tried to get Thunderf00t to clarify what he meant. You can find the conversations on Twitter.

He was asked straight out "if someone tells you to stop when you're having sex, would you do that?" - and he refused to answer.

I don't know if he genuinely believes his position is unambiguous and his meanings are clear (which they aren't, or so many people wouldn't be asking for clarification) - or if he realises the communicated his point badly but is too arrogant to admit it.

In response to those who think we already teach men not to rape, I have a story for you.

I used to have a friend, he came over to my house, hung out a few times when my husband was out doing shopping, stuff like that. I trusted him, thought he was an all right guy, a little pushy.

One day, we're standing around on the deck talking about rape, and he pipes up with his example of "not rape": His ex-girlfriend (they'd split amicably) had come to a party at his place. She'd gotten really drunk (they were still friends, right?). She didn't want to try to drive home. He TOLD HER to go sleep it off in his bed. Later on, once the party died down, he went in, undressed her and started "having sex with her." She cried, she said no, she tried to push him off.

When I said, "Oh my god, you raped her!" his immediate response was, "Did that lying bitch tell you that?"

He had just described holding down a crying woman who repeatedly said no, and forcing himself on her, but he STILL didn't see that as rape because she was "in his bed." The bed where he told her it'd be safe for her to sleep it off, you know, the bed of her trusted "still friends" ex-boyfriend?

It seems like some people have assumed that the same number of rapes would occur regardless of how much effort is put into minimizing risk. That any attempt to minimize risk only ends up emboldening the rapist, in order for the number of rapes that person would have/will commit to remain constant. That kind of thinking seems faulty to me, as it re-inforces the idea that a rapist "cannot help themselves" and are thus victims of their own biological urge to rape. Victims creating victims, so to speak.

In the example of Rapist TM, it is quite possible that the effort to minimize rape [by dressing up like a nutter] has essentially cut the number of rapes TM might have committed in half [instead of just Woman B]. Using that example on a national scale, you've cut the number of total rapes in half. Thats significant.

Using words like "the inevitable rapes" is misleading, you cant assume what that number is, even if you can safely assume it is a non-zero number. The number could be 1, or it could be 100,000.

The truth is, we don't know how effective the collective efforts to minimize rape would be [both by the efforts of women and the efforts of men], so assuming there would be no difference in some arbirary and unspeficiable number of "inevitable rapes" is not only careless, it ignores the point. Any effort to minimize rape is going to be more effective than no effort.

Rape is most often considered a crime of opportunity, not premeditation, so the idea that every person who has ever raped is a sinister predator stalking ally's looking for helpless victims is not only false, it misrepresents the problem entirely. Most crimes of opportunity see reduced numbers when awareness increases and precautions are employed, i.e. less opportunity equals less crime.

I am not convinced that rape is different in this capacity, if we increase awareness about rape and sexual assault/abuse, and take precautions that help mitigate risk, then we should see a reduction in the number of rapes, even if that number is only equal to the number of "inevitable rapes" that number will still be lower than the number of inevitable rapes PLUS the number of preventable rapes.

In an ideal world, no effort should be necessary to prevent rape, but in an ideal world no effort should be necessary to prevent any crime. We do not live in an ideal world, therefore effort becomes necessary. This includes parents teaching men not to rape, as well as teaching women how to reduce risk factors [body language etc].

Also, no evidence has ever been shown that wearing skimpy clothes increases ones risk to be raped, so that kind of thinking is just flat out ignorant.

"No one is saying that advising caution equals victimization. But Thunderfool is mistaking advice given to people who have already been victimized (ie, don't blame yourself for what someone else chose to do to you)with preventative advice."

Really? I've seen the video in question, and thunderf00t basically claims that minimizing your chances of facing a situation where one would be raped is more sound than trying to teach people to not commit crimes, which would be as effective as teaching people not to lie and cheat and steal and expecting stuff like that to simply go away.

"It's also condescending to think that most people don't already know how to avoid situations like the one you describe, but most rapes don't happen that way. Teaching young men (and yes it's mostly young men) about things like the importance of consent is a necessary step if we're serious about reducing the incidence of rape."

We already teach people not to rape. Unless you're suggesting we need to essentially brainwash young men into thinking they're all rapist on the inside and that they need to fight that urge before it happens. I'm not exactly sure what you're suggesting?

By the way, I was raped by a family member, so I understand fully the scenario you're talking about. I seriously doubt teaching the perpetrator "not to rape" actually would have done anything in my case, so from personal experience, I'm highly skeptical.

I'm not so sure this anecdotal story proves anything? I'm not trying to attack or undermine your experience, I'm just saying this isn't hard data proving the effectiveness and necessity of teaching men (as if they are the only ones who commit acts of rape and sexual assault/harassment) not to rape, in whatever manner that may be?

"The whole "we're just trying to teach women risk avoidance" plea is disingenuous. It's a way of saying "Well, we told the women how not to get raped - so if after that they do get raped, whose fault can it possibly be? Not ours. Our hands are clean.""

I certainly don't have that attitude, and have never met someone with that attitude. I see feminist make this claim often, but I've never encountered it before. I certainly don't mean to say if my daughter was raped, it'd be her own fault. Neither did I mean one of my friends getting mugged was his own fault when I told him not to walk through dark allies, where surprise, in one he got mugged.

Reginald Taylor said.. "I've seen the video in question, and thunderf00t basically claims that minimizing your chances of facing a situation where one would be raped is more sound than trying to teach people to not commit crimes, which would be as effective as teaching people not to lie and cheat and steal and expecting stuff like that to simply go away."

He says a lot more than that thought and his advice about looking like a wasp and avoiding mountain lions with cubs is, well, less than helpful wouldn't you say? And when he goes on to the "just don't look like a victim, don't send the wrong signals" kind of "advice" then yes, he is venturing into victim blaming.

Like I said earlier, I used to teach a women's self defence seminar, and yes we talked about stuff life "awareness and avoidance" but what I learned from listening to the women in that seminar (and for that part I mostly listened 'cause women know more about taking precautions than any man can teach them) was that there are no precautions that are sufficient to prevent an assault by the once trusted friend or family member, which is far more common than the stereotypical stranger rape T-Foot is fixated on.

"We already teach people not to rape. Unless you're suggesting we need to essentially brainwash young men into thinking they're all rapist on the inside and that they need to fight that urge before it happens. I'm not exactly sure what you're suggesting? "

I'm suggesting that we need to get men to have the same kind of conversations about consent and respect for sexual boundaries that women have all the time about prevention and precautions. That's what "teach them not to rape" means. It's not simply saying "don't rape" it's about fostering a better understanding of the issues around consent and responsible sexual behaviour.

"I certainly don't have that attitude, and have never met someone with that attitude."

I think you must not be paying attention then because I see it all the time...from the reaction to the Steubenville incident to Ashley Paramore's recent account of her assault in front of a room full of people ...the comments on that video alone are full of idiots who think it was her fault for having a few drinks and "leading him on" by not calling the cops as soon as he got a little too grabby.

And the sad thing about that is it was not at all surprising to see those comments...in fact I fully expected them. Because there are too many guys who still don't get it when it comes to sex and consent.

Even if we are teaching our children "don't rape" (although I don't think we really are), we aren't teaching them what rape is. Rape is only kind of gross violation of another person that receives anywhere near this level of rules-lawyering.

However, numerous commenters have still criticised me saying that it is obvious (to them) that Tf00t intended ExA as something the 'yes rape' side of the line and that i am quote mining to even bring it up in the way I did.

Congratulations, you have met the average Thunderf00t drone. I know how it works, I have done the same up until TF started attacking feminism. TF says utter shit, but like always he's trying to be vague and ambiguous and whenever somebody makes legitimate counterpoints TF relies on his fans to argue that he really meant sth else. This time however he made a mistake, by arguing on twitter on when is the right moment to stop after someone said stop, and whether it's also rape if the man says stop and the woman keeps going. It's clear that he thinks, once consensual sex started you could at least let the guy finish.

Reading through the comments here, TF video and his fans just keep making me sicker.Yes, it is obvious that some men feel entitled to sex. And I am afraid, Thunderf00t with his 'advice', or shaming to call it for what it is, will only achieve to shift that feeling of entitlement for some men to the wrong end. Namely for those, who aren't sure whether flirting, drinking too much or skimpy clothes means the woman is asking for it. If you read the comment section, it's clear that some of his fans need a lot of education about that.

I take your point wrt 'the avergae Tf00t drone', it seems to be the very nature of political and socio-political discourse that people start to interpret based almost entirely on their perception of the speaker rather than what was actually said (not saying everybody does that, ofc, but many do and it always always happens on all sides). Maybe i am just naive, but (irrespective of what Tf00ts actual intentions were) I really think that these people do genuinely believe this is what Tf00t meant and that their 'thumbing up' of his video ought to be viewed in that light.

As to his tweets, I am pleased you managed to get so much out of them, I found them no less ambiguous than his video. That said, twitter is a much narder beast to follow so maybe you were privy to chains of exchange that I have missed. I got involved a little late on twitter, mainly in exchanges between Thunderfoot with Pooka, Baronesa and FoxyJazabelle because these are people i know and get on with on YouTube. What I saw was a very ambiguous exchange that sparked off when Tf00t tweeted wow, so if i recant my consent and a girl keeps going, shes a rapist!? If I dont tell you r u still a rapist? followed by a somewhat bizarre and petty(on tf00ts part) exchange involving how many seconds 'stopping time' one would have mid-sex.The problem was that the exchange centred around Baronesa's response to this tweet. As tf00t had given two examples and baronesa only gave one response it was unclear if the subsequent exchange was based around baronesa saying "yes, having sex after consent has been clearly withdrawn IS rape" or "yes, continuing having sex with someone who has decided they would like you to stop but giving you no indication IS rape" (I am paraphrasing there btw). So I found I couldn't draw anything whatsoever from that exchange, other than to wonder if both sides were somewhat at crossed purposes.The only thing that really gave me some doubts regarding Tf00ts tweet was these bits:wow, so if i recant my consent and a girl keeps going, shes a rapist!? If I dont tell you r u still a rapist?I found the emboldened portions somewhat at odds with the proposal that Tf00t doesn't regard the first statement as rape. A wow and an exclamation mark seem to imply that he is shocked at the answer he presumes he will receive to that question - and we both know he presumes the answer will be a 'yes' given the known position of baronesa.

The main thing I'm getting from this exchange is that TFoot defenders seem to be arguing that TFoot really isn't as awful as he sounds because he's just an awful communicator. There's apparently some rule that you must think of the most charitable way possible to interpret something TFoot says, and that is what he really meant.

Personally, having been a boy in the U.S., I'm quite certain we don't teach boys not to rape. Not in any useful way. We say 'rape is bad', sure. But then define it in to near non-existence.I do think we very much need a good discussion of consent as part of sex education. Which we definitely need more of. My experience with an overly sheltered upbringing is just that it's like being handicapped for maturing in to a responsible adult.

Hey Noel, thanks for the response. We can agree that TF is at least a bad communicator. Or who knows, maybe it's all on purpose, just to piss people off. I am not entirely convinced that this is not the sole purpose of his videos.I am just not as charitable with the interpretation of his words. Given these twitter comments, and that he's unwilling to clarify what he means by now, that he's condescending in giving his shitty advice (or shaming), whilst pretending that there's nothing that can be done to teach men not to become rapists, and given the fact that his audience by now is made up of anti-feminists and MRAs anyway, who are not interested in advice given to women, but in bashing feminism, I don't really know how charitable I could be with what he has to say. Oh, and I forgot his follow up video, which is just an extension of shit analogies, still doesn't contain any clarification, pretends that his critics haven't watched what he said, while he shows a screencap of this blog, which includes a transcript of everything he said, but yeah... maybe there's still a tiny possibility that he expressed himself badly and just is too proud to correct himself.Anyway, I liked your video and especially the point you raised about taking precautions and acting outside the norms of society. I think this highlights a problem in a lot of people, who would still shame women for going out and have fun, in that they still don't think that's inside the norms for women, and therefore start 'giving advice'.

You say: "As much as that is the intention then I would agree it is disingenuous. However, i think it is unfair to lump all such advice in to that camp. After all, we DO dole out advice on how to avoid almost every single other crime known to humankind so on what grounds do we assume that all that advice is well intentioned and yet assume, across the board, that as soon as sex is involved the advice is for nefarious reasons?"

Because quite truly if we were to really think about this crime we'd see that women can't really prevent it in ANY way. The male entitlement attitude is responsible for rape, and not the woman who was raped. What happens after a rape is a bunch of dudes like Thunderf00t and his fans sit there and pick apart women's behaviour for the key to why the guy raped. That is rape culture. If we want to be an enlightened society with equality for women, we'll bloody stop blaming them for the entitled male rapist's mind.

You say "It is not so much that I think that dialogue is fruitless (though sadly I think in these waters positions are becoming so entrenched that this may be becoming the case - and which is actually why I have quite enjoyed posting here because as someone pigeonholed (by others)as in the 'misogynistic bigot' camp I've actually been able to enjoy some dialogue) but rather that I think both sides are right that their favoured campaigns have validity and worth but wrong that opposing campaigns have no benefit. That was all i meant."

It will be a great day when women are treated with dignity and respect and not blamed for the mind of the criminal. That sir, is why we have such things as feminism. My position is that if you agree with Thunderf00t on these two videos, you are a rape apologist. I am not going to continue to tread lightly on such a serious subject.

It will also be a great day when we call out what is in front of us and stop giving men like Thunderf00t continual benefit of the doubt when he makes videos stating what he did. If men cannot call out a video maker on Youtube who has these fucked up attitudes, then they won't do it in real life and again, this is just another example of rape culture flourishing and men (Thunderfoot fanbois) doing nothing about it.